CFP: AVSA 2020, "Small Worlds", Monash University, Melbourne (due 20 Jan 20)

"Small Worlds: Connections, Collaborations, and Conflicts"
Australasian Victorian Studies Association Conference
17-19 June 2020
Monash University, Melbourne

Keynote speakers: Associate Professor Mary Elizabeth Leighton and Professor Lisa Surridge (University of Victoria, Canada)

Technological advances, imperial expansion, emigration to the colonies and beyond, and an increase in leisure travel made the nineteenth-century world seem smaller. Fuelled by industrialisation, the population of cities boomed, putting masses of people in closer proximity than ever before. The development of transportation, particularly the railways and steamship, meant culture could be disseminated more widely. The various ways in which ideas and people moved aided by technology such as the telegraph enabled new connections, cultures, and ideas to flourish. However, encounters with the unfamiliar and challenges to accepted ways of being provoked anxieties, injustices, and outright conflict.

We invite papers from a range of disciplinary backgrounds including Literature, History, Music, and Art History that interpret any aspect of the nineteenth century in relation to the conference theme of “Small Worlds”. 

Proposals might address such topics as the following:

·      Travelling, tourism and travel writing

·      Urbanisation and the city

·      Emigration

·      Empires, nationalism, colonialism

·      Race, ethnicity, indigeneity

·      Literature and the periodical press

·      Scientific and medical advancement

·      Intellectual, artistic, and political communities

·      Religion and missionary work

·      The Victorian city

·      Collaborative research within Victorian Studies

Paper proposals should comprise a one-paragraph abstract of 200-250-words with a title plus a 100-word biographical note. Please avoid the use of in-text references. Proposals should be emailed to conference convenors Dr Michelle Smith and Associate Professor Paul Watt and at michelle.smith@monash.edu by 20 January 2020.

All those giving a paper at the AVSA conference are required to be members of the Association.

AVSA aims to promote the activities and research of scholars in Victorian literary, history, and cultural studies and since 1973 has provided a meeting place for Victorian Studies scholars in the southern hemisphere. To find out more about AVSA, visit its website at www.avsa.unimelb.edu.au

CFP: AVSA 2019, 25-29 September, Otago University (deadline 1 April)

The University of Otago was founded in 1869. This was a year in which many scientific, political, commercial, cultural and medical milestones were also recorded, including the first issue of Nature, the opening of the Suez Canal, the publication of the Periodic Table, Paul Langerhans’s discovery of pancreatic islets and the appearance of “The Subjection of Women” by John Stuart Mill.

The Centre for Research on Colonial Culture and the Australasian Victorian Studies Association warmly invite you to join them in critically reflecting on these various approaches to knowledge creation and production during the 1860s and beyond, and across disciplines as well as cultures in all areas of human endeavour. Confirmed keynote speakers include Professor Marion Thain (King’s College London) and Megan Potiki (University of Otago), alongside invited speakers Dr Tina Makereti (Massey University), Lisa Chatfield (Producer, The Luminaries) and Professor Liam McIlvanney (University of Otago), with more to be announced!

The conference will combine a traditional academic programme with a range of public heritage festival events, special forums and social  engagements. We invite paper, panel and poster proposals from researchers, policy makers, industry and anyone with an 1869-related story to tell that addresses the conference theme from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Cross-disciplinary panels would be particularly welcomed.

Topics linked to the legacies of Victorian scientific and cultural production include:
• Indigenous knowledges;
• Literary production;
• Colonialism and its legacies;
• Museums, archives and collecting;
• Medical innovation;
• Ecology and the environment;
• Migration, movement, and mobilities;
• Artefacts and archaeological records;
• Mass tourism and popularisation of leisure;
• Scientific advancements;
• Commercial and economic development;
• Art, fashion and design;
• Architecture and built environments;
• Conflict, contestation and resistance;
• Crime and sensation.

Papers: 250-300 word abstract, up to 5 keywords and 50-word biographical statement.
Panels: Panel proposals for three linked papers are encouraged to include presenters from more than one disciplinary background, and from different career stages. 250-300 word individual abstracts, 50-word biographical statements for each presenter, accompanied by a 200 word summary of the overarching theme(s) of the panel.
Posters:
Posters will be on display for the duration of the conference and there will be a timetabled slot for contributors to stand by their  posters so that participants can come and discuss the research.
250-300 word abstract, up to 5 keywords and 50-word biographical statement

Please submit proposals as Word attachments to the conference email address: 1869@otago.ac.nz by 1 April 2019.
Decisions on acceptance will be made by early May, with registration opening in June.

Keep up to date with the latest news and announcements via our Twitter account: @Otago1869

CFP: Texts and Contexts: The Cultural Legacies of Ada Lovelace (Deadline 28 Aug 2015)

Texts and Contexts: The Cultural Legacies of Ada Lovelace

“That brain of mine is more than merely mortal; as time will show.”

A workshop for graduate students and early career researchers
Tuesday 8th December 2015, Mathematics Institute and St Anne’s College, Oxford

The mathematician Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), daughter of poet Lord Byron, is celebrated as a pioneer of computer science. The notes she added to her translation of Luigi Menabrea’s paper on Charles Babbage’s analytical engine (1843) are considered to contain a prototype computer program. During her short life, Lovelace not only contributed original ideas to the plans for this early computer; she also imagined wider possibilities for the engine, such as its application to music, and meditated on its limitations. Lovelace leaves a legacy not just as a computer scientist, but also as a muse for literary writers, a model to help us understand the role of women in science in the nineteenth century, and an inspiration for neo-Victorian and steampunk traditions.

As part of the University of Oxford’s celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of Lovelace’s birth, this one-day workshop will bring together graduates and early career researchers to discuss the varied cultural legacies of this extraordinary mathematician. The day will feature an expert panel including graphic novelist Sydney Padua and biographer Richard Holmes.

The day will conclude with a reception and buffet when there will be opportunities to meet with speakers from the Ada Lovelace 200 Symposium, which will also take place in the Mathematics Institute on the following two days (9th-10th December). Researchers from all disciplines are invited to submit proposals for papers on the influences of Lovelace’s work, on topics including, but not limited to, literature, history, mathematics, music, visual art, and computer science. This might include:

Lovelace’s place in the study of the history of science.
Lovelace and women in science in the nineteenth century
Early nineteenth-century scientific networks, including Lovelace’s relationship with such individuals as Charles Babbage and Mary Somerville.
Lovelace and discussions about the role of the imagination in scientific practice in the nineteenth century.
Lovelace as translator and commentator.
Mathematics and music, and the musical possibilities Lovelace envisaged for Babbage’s engine.
Lovelace’s own textual legacies, such as her correspondence, childhood exercises and mathematical notes held in the Bodleian.
Lovelace’s technological legacies, from her seminal work on Babbage’s Analytical Engine to her impact on computer programming today.
Lovelace’s role in the steampunk tradition, from Gibson and Sterling’s The Difference Engine to Sydney Padua’s The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, and neo-Victorian fashion.
Efforts and activities to commemorate and memorialise Lovelace, from the recent Google Doodle to the annual Ada Lovelace Day.

Proposals, not exceeding 250 words, for 15-minute papers should be submitted to adalovelaceworkshop@ell.ox.ac.uk by 5pm, Friday 28th August 2015. Those who are accepted to speak at this graduate workshop will also be offered free registration for the Ada Lovelace 200 Symposium taking place on the following two days. For more information, please visit https://adalovelaceworkshop.wordpress.com.